


Thank Heaven

by Pitseleh



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Fluff, Longing, M/M, Pining, Snippet, Subtext, Unresolved Sexual Tension, pov fic, preslash, you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-29
Updated: 2011-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/pseuds/Pitseleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Page 80 of Tongues of Serpents, this time from Tharkay's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thank Heaven

Laurence was not well, but Tharkay took comfort in the fact that he was at least not as unwell as he had been months previous. He was distracted, distant, but not openly doleful, not the creature dead but for the breath he kept taking, silent and hollow upon the earth.

He was getting better. He would be alright.

And Tharkay was as he always was. Very little had changed, he told himself, lying under the alien sky late at night, with Laurence sleeping peacefully at his side. The world was the same, unchanged save for the scenery and his company. Tharkay did not change, he was a stone.

Tharkay had never considered himself such a liar.

Looking back, Tharkay found that those dank, monotonous months aboard the _Allegiance_ had been some of the best in recent years. He was himself, he was even _Tenzing_ , which his chosen confidants called him with respect and pleasure. He could still not quite move himself to call Laurence _Will_ , if only because he doubted his ability to retain a nonchalant facade through it. To call something by its given name was to own it, and while at this point Tharkay was most certainly Laurence's, Tharkay made no foolhardy assumptions that Laurence would ever be Tharkay's.

Still, it was strange. The sea moving under them, and the sky above, and he had been truly calm. Not worrying where their next food or shelter would be found, or how the men he lead despised him, and yet at the same time not proving his own laziness and neglect through inaction. Moving towards a goal while at the same time accomplishing it, Tharkay learned why Laurence had loved the sea.

And while it was not the sea, only water, it was at this moment the best Tharkay could do to bring something of it back to Laurence. Stepping idly through the camp, he walked up to the dragon's side and bent down to the sleeping form of his captain. Gently, wordlessly, he took Laurence's shoulder. That was as always all he needed to wake the other man, a light sleeper from years of training at sea.

Laurence looked up at him, into his eyes, wide with gratitude, and said, still groggy and mussed with sleep, "thank Heaven."


End file.
